London Gambit

by Tracy Grant

  He grinned. "We'd manage."

  She could see them, being painfully polite to each other, stepping gingerly round sensitive subjects. Her own voice, increasingly brittle, his silences growing longer. The strain at the breakfast table. The English papers that would be a constant reminder of what they had lost. How long would it be before he blamed her? How long could love outlast the fact that, if not for her, he wouldn't have had to give up his home, his career, been left isolated, separated, and perhaps estranged from the people he loved?

  He turned his face into her hair. "There's something to be said for peace and quiet."

  "We'd go mad."

  "Or you would?"

  "Darling." She pushed herself up on one elbow. "You—"

  "Have always wanted a settled life more than you do."

  "That's—"

  "A fact. I don't think you'd have wanted a settled life at all if it weren't for Colin."

  Her denial caught in her throat. It was true. Her greatest qualm about becoming a mother had been that it would drive her from the field of action. In a sense, marriage to Malcolm had been the perfect solution. It had allowed her to continue her work while being with Colin in relative safety. And yet—

  "You don't want a settled life either, darling. You just think you should, and it gets all wrapped up in your protective impulses. But you're just as excited as I am when a new adventure drops into our laps."

  The candle flame caught his grin. "Well, perhaps not just as much. But, all right. Yes. I'm not sure I need it in quite the way you do, though. I understand if you're afraid you won't be able to stand a quiet life with me—"

  "It's not that, darling. I'm not the one who'd be haunted by what my spouse had forced me to give up."

  Inches away, his gaze moved over her face. She could see the beginnings of stubble on his jaw, even though he'd shaved before they went to the Lydgates' ball, and the faint remnants of a scar that ran into his temple. "Is that what you think?" he demanded. "That I'd blame you?"

  "Not consciously. Not deliberately. But how could it not occur to you that if it weren't for your wife, you wouldn't have had to leave Parliament, leave Dunmykel, you wouldn't be cut off from your friends—"

  "Have I blamed you? Have I ever blamed you, after those first few days?"

  "No." Her throat hurt, as though she'd swallowed acid. "You've kept it all to yourself. You've been a marvel of kindness."

  "Kindness—"

  "I keep waiting for it to all spill over." Even earlier tonight when he'd lost himself in her arms, he'd been angrier at himself than at her.

  The candlelight bounced off his eyes. "Waiting for it to, or wanting it to?"

  "Why would I—"

  "Sweetheart." He touched her cheek with gentle fingers. "It's never going to happen, you know. I'm never going to be as angry at you as you are at yourself."

  She gave an impatient shake of her head. "I lived with myself for five and a half years, darling. You know better than anyone how good I am at justifying moral compromise."

  "I know just how much of a toll it took on you." He slid his fingers into her hair, smoothing it off her temple. "Don't think I've forgot how thin you got in Brussels before Waterloo."

  "Those were rather extraordinary circumstances. Now—"

  "Now you aren't spying for the French, you've got all too much leisure to dwell on the past."

  She drew a sharp breath. "R—"

  "O'Roarke said that's what would happen?" Malcolm asked. His gaze was at once soft and carefully neutral.

  For a moment she could see Raoul's taut, exhausted face, in the hot room in Brussels where they'd met, hear his voice, harsh yet with a note of tenderness not unlike that Malcolm's own voice could hold. "After Waterloo. When I told him I was going to stop working for him. He warned me that in a few weeks or months I'd feel an intolerable weight of guilt. That it would be worse when I didn't have the needs of the moment to focus on."

  "O'Roarke has always been damnably perceptive."

  "I think perhaps you and your father have more finely tuned feelings than I do. I've always been a pragmatist."

  He gave no sign that he'd noticed she'd referred to Raoul as his father, though he must have been aware of it. "On the contrary. I think we're both very attuned to what you're feeling."

  "You're both inclined to worry about me when you should be focused on the mission." It was something she hadn't fully appreciated about Raoul until recently. He and Malcolm were far more alike than one might think from a casual acquaintance with the two men.

  "Well. You're rather important to both of us." Malcolm tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'd miss Britain. I'd miss my friends and family. I'd miss Parliament. God help me, I'd even miss being an agent. Ex-agent. But I could learn to live with the quiet. I grow a bit cold at the thought of what the imagined guilt would do to you though. Not to mention the quiet."

  Chapter 30

  The sky was just beginning to lighten when Malcolm woke. He stared at the canopy and the gray light filtering in between the curtains for a few moments, but further sleep was plainly going to elude him. He pressed a kiss to Suzanne's forehead, grateful she still slept, and swung his feet to the floor.

  Jessica was sound asleep in her cradle, flopped on her back, a small arm flung over her head. Malcolm smoothed the blanket over her, touched his fingers to her cheek, looked into the nursery where Colin and Emily were both still sound asleep, Berowne at the foot of Emily's bed. Then he went into the dressing room. After years in the field, he was quite proficient at shaving and dressing himself. He rarely rang for Addison in the morning, especially now Addison was a married man. He might not leave the dressing room arrayed quite to his valet's standards, but he was certainly passable. He went out onto the landing and ran lightly down the stairs, intending to seek refuge in the library, for it was early for the breakfast things to be out. But when he reached the ground floor hall he caught a whiff of coffee. The breakfast parlor door was ajar and light spilled out into the shadows.

  Malcolm went into the breakfast parlor to find O'Roarke at the table, a coffee cup beside him, the Morning Chronicle spread before him, though he didn't appear to be reading it.

  "Malcolm." O'Roarke looked up with a quick smile. "Valentin found me in the library when he was opening up the house and insisted on making coffee. Very good of him."

  "I couldn't sleep either." Malcolm went to pour himself a cup of coffee. O'Roarke, he suspected, had left Laura's room before the sun was up and had come downstairs rather than attempting to go back to sleep.

  O'Roarke sat back in his chair and reached for his own cup. "I'll visit the coffeehouse Lisette mentioned today and see if I can pick up the trail of Louis Germont and the man he's working with. And now that we know Fouché may be involved, there are further inquiries I can make."

  Malcolm nodded and took a sip of coffee. Hot. Bitter. Familiar. Not enough to still everything roiling through him, but enough to steady him. "I need to give a report to Carfax. I think I can find a way to ask if he's had news of Fouché without him suspecting anything."

  O'Roarke frowned a moment, then nodded. "That should go unnoticed unless Carfax already knows about the plot—and if he does, God help us."

  Malcolm dropped down at the table and took another sip of coffee. "Do you really think the plot is a device of Fouché's to curry favor with the Bourbons?"

  "I don't know enough to think anything with certainty," O'Roarke said in an even voice. "Based on what we know I'm inclined to think it's the likeliest explanation."

  Malcolm turned his cup in his hand. "It fits the facts."

  "But you're wary of it," O'Roarke said. It wasn't a question.

  "I suppose I'm wary of anything that's easy."

  "I hardly think a potential plot of Fouché's that may include Suzanne as a target is easy for any of us."

  "No. But given that we know there is a plot of some sort—this explanation keeps us all on the same side."

  O'Roar
ke's gaze stayed steady on Malcolm's face. "Suzanne decided she was on the same side as you a long time ago, Malcolm."

  Malcolm set his cup down. "Suzanne decided she wouldn't actively work against me. She decided she'd work with me as long as our interests align. They aren't always going to align. It would be folly to pretend we all can say we'll agree on a course of action when we learn what really is behind this plot."

  "No." O'Roarke took a drink of coffee. "It's both redundant and an understatement to say this can't be easy."

  Malcolm stared at the steam curling above the cup. "We were bound to face a situation that put us on opposite sides at some point. Even if you're right about Fouché and we escape this time, it's bound to happen again."

  Raoul returned his cup to its saucer as though the slightest tremor in his hand might break it. "Suzanne knows what she has to lose, Malcolm."

  "It's not that easy." Malcolm's gaze shot to his father. "I don't want her to deny who she is because she's my wife." He could say that to O'Roarke. There was no one else to whom he could voice the fear.

  "I can't imagine Suzanne denying who she is."

  "Which may put us on opposite sides." Malcolm reached for the coffee pot and refilled both their cups. "No sense in dwelling on it now. All we can do is move forwards with what information we have."

  O'Roarke picked up his cup and blew on the steam. "It's a damnable coil. And particularly when you're in the midst of an investigation that touches on Carfax."

  Malcolm grimaced. "All too much touches on Carfax. And now it appears Oliver Lydgate is involved as well."

  O'Roarke shot a quick look at him. Malcolm drew a breath and found himself updating O'Roarke on the developments involving Whateley & Company. Oddly, just verbalizing the previous night's revelations eased a bit of the strain in his chest.

  O'Roarke listened in silence, though his gaze said he was sifting through the information even as he took it in. "It can't be easy about Lydgate. I sometimes wonder what's harder for an agent, living with secrets or living with the fact that most of one's friends have them as well. But your Oxford friends seemed removed from that life."

  "I suppose Mama and Aunt Frances wrote to you about us."

  "Oh, yes." O'Roarke reached for his coffee. "And I read your pamphlets."

  "God. Surely you had more pressing reading matter than undergraduate ramblings."

  "On the contrary. They were very cogently argued. Yours in particular—though I admit to a certain bias—and of course Tanner has a brilliant way with words and Worsley can be very persuasive. But Lydgate impressed me as well."

  "He's been a good friend. And a good colleague." Malcolm stared into his coffee. "And I don't have the least idea what he's up to."

  "You need more data."

  "Did you cross paths with Maria Monreal in the Peninsula?"

  "Once. I was disguised as a wine merchant and she was disguised as a member of a guerrillero band. Undoubtedly a clever woman."

  "Did she see through your disguise?"

  "No. At least I flatter myself not."

  Malcolm nodded. "We need more data, as you say. Folly to talk ourselves in circles."

  O'Roarke leaned back in his chair. "What do you know about Colonel Cuthbertson?"

  "Not a great deal. I hadn't met him until the night before last. Davenport served with him in the Peninsula, and he's an old friend of Laura's from India."

  "So I realize. He's obviously very fond of her."

  Malcolm shot a look at his father. "For God's sake—I don't think you have anything to worry about, O'Roarke."

  O'Roarke took a sip of coffee. "Why should I be worried? I want Laura to be happy."

  Malcolm watched as O'Roarke again carefully returned his cup to its saucer. "Laura's fond of him. She can remember her past with him. The good parts of her past. I'd swear it isn't more than that."

  "My dear Malcolm. I saw the way Cuthbertson was looking at her last night."

  "On her side, I meant."

  O'Roarke gave a faint smile. "You needn't try to spare my feelings."

  "I'm not." Malcolm reached across the table and put a hand on his father's arm. "Look here, O'Roarke, surely I, of all people, don't have to point out to you that a woman may have complicated feelings for a man from her past without betraying her current relationship."

  O'Roarke's gaze flashed to his own, one of those rare moments it seemed truly open. "Your forbearance is remarkable, Malcolm. But if you've realized that, I'm inestimably grateful. The situations are scarcely the same, however. Laura doesn't owe me anything."

  "When it comes to owing I'd say it's more a matter of personal feelings than legal obligations. It's fairly apparent what Laura feels for you."

  O'Roarke gave a wintry smile. "You have a keen understanding, Malcolm. But your own happiness may be coloring your perceptions of those round you."

  "And your tendency not to think you deserve happiness may be coloring yours."

  "I don't in the least—"

  "You and my wife share that. I know a bit about it myself."

  Their gazes met. The man who had introduced him to Shakespeare, taught him to fish, helped him write school speeches, come to Harrow for speech day when neither of Malcolm's parents had. It was probably always a shock the first time one spoke to one's parent as another adult about romantic relationships. It was even more of a shock when one had barely begun to accept that the person in question was one's parent. "I appreciate the support," O'Roarke said. "But I've made choices. I hope I'm at least man enough to live with the consequences."

  "And leave Laura to live with the consequences?"

  "Damn it, you don't think I want Laura to be happy?" O'Roarke drew a breath. "Sorry."

  "On the contrary. I think Laura's happiness matters a great deal to you. I just think you have a worrying tendency to think that it doesn't lie with you."

  O'Roarke fixed his gaze on the windows. Valentin had looped back the muslin subcurtains, and gray light slanted through the panes. "I don't think Laura herself can say where her happiness lies at present. And that gives me license to—enjoy our time together. Without worrying about what I'm denying her."

  "That's rather a bleak outlook."

  "I wouldn't call it bleak. I've learned to snatch happiness where I can."

  "So you keep looking ahead and expecting the happiness to end? Until you decide she's better off with someone else?" Malcolm paused a moment. "As you did with Mélanie?"

  For a moment O'Roarke went as still as if he were encased in ice. "With Mélanie, one can hardly argue I was wrong."

  "And with my mother?"

  O'Roarke's fingers whitened on the handle of his coffee cup. "I never did end things with your mother, Malcolm. But I didn't do a very good job of making her happy."

  The pain in his voice cut through the room.

  "Christ, Raoul," Malcolm said. "You can't blame yourself. You knew her demons."

  "None better. But one always thinks one should be enough to hold them at bay."

  Malcolm found himself staring at the stretch of wall above the sideboard, dappled by the light from the windows. Suzanne had chosen a pale peach for the room. It had been ice blue in his mother's day. He remembered the letter Raoul had sent him after his mother's suicide. An amazingly thoughtful letter. But for the first time, it occurred to him how it must have been for Raoul to receive the news of her death, in another country, with no outwards way to show his grief. "I suspect you did hold them at bay for a long time. Not that I haven't thought the same myself."

  "You were a child."

  "Not by the time she died. I was old enough to know she needed help and young enough not to have the least idea how to provide it."

  "I'm twenty years your senior, Malcolm, and I couldn't answer that." Raoul looked at him for a long moment. "Nothing. Nothing you could have done would have made a difference."

  "Thank you. I'll never quite believe it, any more than you do, but thank you for trying to make me. Laura, however, is
no Arabella Rannoch."

  Raoul gave a twisted smile. "Fanny said much the same to me last night."

  "Aunt Frances—" Malcolm regarded his father for a moment. "I'm rather glad not to be the only one who suffers her emotional insights."

  "Yes, it's amazing how a woman five years my junior can make me feel like an undergraduate."

  "Laura's sorted out a great deal in the past three months, from what I've seen. And her feelings for you only appear to have grown stronger."

  Raoul drew a breath. "I don't expect my own feelings to change. But I'm trying to give her latitude should hers do so."

  "And Emily?" Malcolm asked.

  Raoul went still for a moment. "Emily sees me as an uncle, as do Colin and Jessica. There's no reason that should change, whatever happens between her mother and me."

  Malcolm had an image of Raoul swinging Emily up on his shoulders. "Colin and Jessica love you," he said. Odd how natural that seemed now. "They see you as part of the family. But it's different with Emily. That's been apparent from the moment you and Laura first brought her into our dining room. After Laura, you're the most important adult in her life."

  Raoul shook his head. "At that point, I was the only other adult she really knew in her new life. I helped rescue her. It lent a sort of glamour."

  "You don't need any help to acquire a sort of glamour, O'Roarke. And that may be part of why you're special to Emily. But I'd wager the rest is because of what's between you and her mother."

  Raoul's brows drew together. "We haven't—"

  "I don't mean she could put it into words. I don't mean she's aware of anything that could be considered in the least improper. But I'm quite sure she knows there's something special between you and Laura."

  Raoul was watching him with the care of one handling porcelain. "Malcolm—"

  "Was I aware of what was between you and my mother? Yes and no. In retrospect, much more yes than no. But I don't think you and Arabella were ever a settled couple in quite the way you and Laura are."